There is a conventional technique of picking up an image of a dead angle of a vehicle by mounting a camera device such as a CCD camera on a bumper and the like of the vehicle, and displaying the picked up image on a display device inside the car.
Now, light which enters from obliquely above a camera device is not just unnecessary, but causes stray light by being reflected in a lens or a camera case.
To prevent such stray light, a shielding body 3 is disclosed as shown in FIGS. 10 and 11 that shields at least part of light from outside the image pickup visual field of a camera device body 1 mounted on a vehicle (e.g. patent documents 1 to 7).
The shielding body 3 includes a plate-like body 4 in almost annular shape, and an eyelid part 7 formed over a round opening part 4a of the plate-like body 4 to cover the upper half of a lens outer surface 5 of the camera device body 1. The eyelid part 7 shields light trying to enter the upper half of the lens outer surface 5. The inner surface of the eyelid part 7 has a shape along the shape of the lens outer surface 5.
The plate-like body 4 is formed in diameter dimensions bigger than the height dimension and width dimension of the camera device body 1 in order to hide the camera device body 1 positioned at the rear of the plate-like body 4.
On the rear surface of the plate-like body 4, four engagement members 9a, 9b and 9c in long piece shape are formed to extend toward the rear, so that the engagement member 9a engages a prescribed engagement part 9d of the camera device body 1.
When the plate-like body 4 is mounted to be level with a prescribed surface of wall such as a bumper of the vehicle, most of the camera device body 1 is hidden in the rear of the plate-like body 4, thus not spoiling the design of the vehicle.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Registered Design No. 1220983
Patent Document 2: Japanese Registered Design No. 1220984
Patent Document 3: Japanese Registered Design No. 1226643
Patent Document 4: Japanese Registered Design No. 1226644
Patent Document 5: Japanese Registered Design No. 1226645
Patent Document 6: Japanese Registered Design No. 1226646
Patent Document 7: Japanese Registered Design No. 1226647
Typically, the camera device body 1 includes a lens system, a CCD, a circuit substrate and the like therein. Thus in the patent documents 1 to 7, the camera device body 1 is greater in weight than the shielding body 3.
In addition, as the engagement members 9a, 9b and 9c in long piece shape of the shielding body 3 are used for the positioning so that only the engagement member 9a engages the engagement part 9d of the camera device body 1, it is difficult to hold the camera device body 1 only by the engagement members 9a, 9b and 9c of the shielding body 3. For this reason, after mounting the camera device body 1 on the vehicle, the shielding body 3 needs to be fixedly mounted to have its plate-like body 4 in close contact with the prescribed surface of wall such as the bumper of the vehicle, to support the shielding body 3 on the camera device body 1 side.
For the shielding body 3 to be fixedly mounted to have the plate-like body 4 in close contact with the prescribed surface of wall such as the bumper of the vehicle, however, the mounting position of the camera device body 1 needs to be set as preparatory work in a manner that brings the plate-like body 4 in close contact with the prescribed surface of wall such as the bumper of the vehicle. Such work has to be conducted before mounting the shielding body 3, which makes the work difficult. When mounting the shielding body 3 after mounting the camera device body 1 on a vehicle, particularly when a focusing mechanism called an adjuster (now shown) to focus with adjustment to the position of a lens in an optical axis direction is provided in the vicinity of the front end of the camera device body 1, a worker may come in contact with the adjuster by mistake. The contact with the adjuster may cause deviation from the original lens position, which results in out-of-focus vision.
Further, despite the fact that optical axis directions of the camera device body 1 may vary by vehicle type, so the mounting position of the camera device body 1 and the mounting position of the shielding body 3 vary depending on the vehicle type and the like, the aforementioned conventional technique is greatly restricted in that the plate-like body 4 of the shielding body 3 has to be mounted in close contact with the bumper, and so forth. Particularly when the plate-like body 4 of the shielding body 3 is displaced and mounted in front of the bumper, the beauty of the vehicle will be spoiled.
Another disadvantage is that the engagement members 9a, 9b, and 9c in long piece shape extending toward the rear from the rear surface of the plate-like body 4 have low strength, and thus have low impact resistance.